I am Sophie, a Swedish woman by birth but English by adoption. I have a little mud hotel in the beautiful and ancient West African town of Djenne, Mali. WWW.HOTELDJENNEDJENNO.COM Because of unstable political
situation, tourism has ground to a halt. Hotel still open! But hotel staff mainly working in Bogolan studio now: www.malimali.org check out our fab online shop!

Monday, January 12, 2015

A Turbulent Day (so far, and it is only 14.30!)

Yes, even by Djenné standards today has been exceptional –
and as we know, life here is “the square root of Emotional Rollercoasters”
inBirgit’s apt phrase.

It started quite sedately this morning at the Djenné
Manuscript Library with the judging of the Calligraphy Competition with the
theme: “Islam; a Religion of Peace”. Ichoose the three winners among the 25 entrants together with the other
judges which included Samake and five Djenné Koran Masters and Calligraphy experts. This
happened without incident and more about this tomorrow when we are having the
Prize giving ceremony at the Manuscript Library...

During the meeting at the library I received a phone call
from the Commandant du Peloton- that
means the head of the Gendarmerie
here.He was at the hotel and wanted to
see me urgently “Nous avons un petit
problem” as he put it. When I arrived at the hotel I found the Commandant
with another gendarmesitting with Papa and a young Fulani man. The latter
had put in a formal complaint against Papa regarding an unpaid debt of 500 000FCFA
(770E). He accused Papa of Escroquerie
; that is to say fraud. The commandant said that he knew that Papa worked at
the hotel and he had decided to come to see me before arresting Papa and simply
throwing him in jail- which is what would happen unless the money was found
today.

I was told that Papa had borrowed the money from the
Fulani on behalf of someone else. The Fulani in his place had also borrowed the
money from someone else: the forth link in this chain of debt. Papa had
apparently told the Fulani that he would be repaid in three days, but he had
not been able to come up with the money. This was now several weeks ago.

I said that judging from the facts that had been presented
to me it was not a question of fraud but only of non- payment of debt; which to me did not seem to be the same thing.
Papa had thought that he was going to be
able to repay the money but he had been mistaken. The commandant said that it
was not the whole story and that there were other details which made it
possible to label it ‘fraud’ and that he wanted Papa to tell me himself. So I
took Papa aside, bringing Baba also for support .I asked him to tell me the whole truth: what were the details that the commandant was talking about? I said that unless he told me
the truth I was not willing to help him. Papa came up with something outlandish
about false bank notes; saying that it
was the Fulani and the Commandant who wanted to put him in jail and that he
was innocent. Little by little I surmised that Papa had lent the money to a
person who was fabricating false bank notes. Papa knew about it and he had been
told that he would get a cut in the profit if he could come up with the money;
at least that is what I believe happened. I kept asking Papa: ‘What is the
truth in this? If you are innocent please tell me what actually did happen and
I will consider helping you.’ Papa could not come up with anything convincing;
in fact he said nothing. I took Baba aside and asked his opinion. He said: “He
is not clean in this affair”. I now called Keita who once he had been given the
details told me to keep out of it and to
have nothing to do with it whatsoever. ‘But what are we going to do? I
objected. ‘We need a chef! We can’t let them throw him in jail!’ Keitasaid that for a start there would be no
problem finding a chef in Djenné to replace Papa: there are at least three good
chefs queuing up for the privilege of becoming the only chef in Djenné whois being paid regularly and secondly Papa
would find the money anyway: I was absolutely not to get involved. Meanwhile Papa was wandering backwards and
forwards in the court yard talking on his mobile phone.

I now went over to the Commandant and thanked him for his
consideration in comingto see me and
giving me a chance to pay for Papa but that we had decided that we were not
going to pay. Papa then stepped in and apparently his emergency phone call had
been fruitful because he said that he would come up with the money before
nightfall. The Commandant, his collegue and the Fulani went on their way and I was
just about to sit down and catch my breath for a moment to digest this momentous
event when Bob turned up; and another drama, this time of life and death unfurled...

Bob the tailor is one of my oldest friends in Djenné- see
blogsearch above-. Malimali has helped him many times to find money: to buy a
sewing machine; to set up his atelier
in town, to pay for a hernia operation etcetc. Bob the tailor is the brother of
Alpha: the longsuffering, kind but
rather hamfisted tailor who is now working
in the MaliMali studio. When I saw Bob arriving I knew already what his visit
was about. It was a question of their third brother who is gravely ill.

The elder brother of Bob and Alpha had gone into the bush
to harvest millet. While he washarvesting he developed a tooth ache but did nothing about it apart from
taking paracetamol . When he returned from the harvest about ten days ago his
whole throat and neck had swollen up and he was already suffering from a serious infection. Bob and Alpha took him
to Djenné hospital where after consultation with a doctor a senior nurse
lanced the abcess and he was prescribed and administered antibiotics. He was to
return every day for the redressing of the wound.

A couple of days later there was no improvement and
apparently a new type of stronger antibiotics were prescribed which were to be
injected. Bob and his brother had spent their last money- meanwhile the state
of the brother was rapidly declining and
he was slipping in and out of consciousness. Yesterday Alpha was in tears at
the sewing machine. The wife of the elder brother arrived , crying at the studio
to ask help from Malimali: they had all been up all night by the sick bed. I called
Keita in Segou and asked him to get involved. He spoke to the staff at the
hospital and promised that Malimali would take charge of the medical
expenses from now on. He was satisfied that what could be done was being done
for the man. Keita said that even if he were to be taken to Mopti hospital
there would be little else that could be done for him apart from dressing the
wound and giving antibiotic injections. We told the family to be patient , to
let the medication take its course and to pray.

Therefore, when I saw Bobtoday I was hoping he was bringing good news about an improvement. Alas
no. He came with an evacuation order from the hopital here- his brother needed
to go to Mopti urgently. This morning when they removed the dressings they
discovered that the neck and the throat had more or less been eaten away. Bob was crying and
saying he did not have the money to bring him to Mopti. I called Keita, who
said that he had spoken to the hospital staff and in fact there is no way that he is going to be able to survive. To evacuate to Moptimight
bring us huge expenses at the hospital. I wanted to know whether if it was certain
that the patient was going to die, it would not be possible just to administer some morphine or
other palliative care? Keita said that the medical staff are programmed to try
and keep people alive and that they would put him onto whatever life support machines
are available; they would only communicate the cost of the treatment. Oh dear, what
to do??

Bob said he had someone who was willing to lend their car
for the transport to Mopti- he needed only the money for the diesel. I decided
in consultation with Keita that it was necessary to give some money in order
for the evacuation to Mopti- only really for the feelings of Bob and Alpha. We
gave 50 000 FCFA(E77) from
Malimali- it will give enough for the diesel and for some treatment in Mopti. I
said we could not give anything else.

This is a sorry tale indeed: this man is on the way to Mopti hospital as I write
this. But even ifhe makes it to Mopti
he will die quite needlessly from a simple case of caries! There is no dentist
in Djenné. People with toothache either have
their tooth pulled out or else they go to Mopti or Bamako but even then the dentistry
is fairly rudimentary but it is a question of lack of material and not of knowledge: there are plenty of
qualified dentists in Mali!

3 Comments:

Terrible indeed: only by such vivid examples will we get to understand what life in Mali is really like, which is why your blog has to take book form at some time or another.

I love it that you put up the crying little girl from Malick Sidibe's studio every time something like this occurs. Perhaps it is the inner child of Sophie the stylish Parisian catwalk model?

Was it good for you to see Boubokar Keita (have I got that right?) in Paris? For me it offset the nasty taste left by leaders of repressive regimes, like the Saudian, who are hardly paradigms of free speech, to put it mildly.

Juliette's Rory has some very good thoughts on all that, which have helped me to clarify mine (ie that I still don't quite know what to think beyond the atrocity of the murders).

Yes, David, it was good to see IBK -Ibrahim Boubakar Keita arm in arm with Hollande and Netanyahu, and it was certainly quite a scoop for him and something for his photo album. He is losing his support rapidly here though...people think he is flitting about all over the world in his controversial jet when he should be at home sorting out Mali. This time I think they are wrong- it must be a good thing for Mali that he went and that he was seen in such a prominent posititon.I would love to hear what Rory has come up with - is he still writing somewhere or do I have to wait until I see him and Jules?